Alexander and the Medicine

Abstract

During the expedition and campaing across Asia, Alexander and his army had been involved in a lot of circunstances that deserved the attention of some professionals of the medicine. The relationship between Alexander’s army and the Physicians is complex, and it is also a question to observe if there were in the army something like a medical unit. Nevertheless, the links between the Argeads and the practice of healing and medical arts and the professionals of medicine seems to have been usual in the Macedonian court. So, Alexander’s episodes concerning his illness, and especially his habilities to heal or to help someone to be healed can be considered as a clue of the king’s connections with Asclepius, and even more, of Alexander’s use of this links to portrait himself as a healer, and in some way even as an incarnation of Asclepios, in his own way to divinization.

Keywords

• Medicine
• Asclepios
• physicians
• medical unit
• Asian campaign
• Alexander the great